Thursday July 4 to Thursday July 11

The New Moon is Saturday, July 6. Earth is at aphelion on the 5th. Mercury is visible in the evening twilight and is close to the crescent Moon on the 11th. Saturn enters the evening sky around 11pm, but is still best in the morning. In a telescope Saturn's famous rings are almost edge on. In the morning the lineup of planets is Saturn, Mars and Jupiter. Jupiter is between the red star Aldebaran and the Pleiades cluster. It forms a second "eye" for Taurus the Bull.

The New Moon is Saturday, July 6. Earth is at aphelion, when it is furthest from the Sun on the 5th.

Western evening sky on Thursday, July 11 as seen from Adelaide at 17:48 ACST (30 minutes after sunset, click to embiggen).   

Mercury is well above the western horizon at the end of civil twilight, and is still visible at nautical twilight an hour after sunset. The crescent Moon is above Mercury and Venus is low on the horizon. You will need a level unobstructed horizon to see Venus, and possibly binoculars.

Similar views will be seen from the rest of Australia at the equivalent local time (30 minutes after sunset).

Morning sky on Thursday, July 4  as seen from Adelaide at 06:24 ACST, (60 minutes before sunrise, click to embiggen). Saturn and Mars are readily visible. Jupiter is between the red star Aldebaran and the Pleiades cluster with the crescent moon forming a line with Jupiter and Mars.

 

 

Similar views will be seen from the rest of Australia at the equivalent local time (60 minutes before sunrise).

 

The eastern sky at 23:00 ACST Saturday, July 6 with Saturn rising, the inset shows the telescopic view at the time. (click to embiggen).

Similar views will be seen from the rest of Australia at the equivalent local time.

 

Whole sky on Saturday, July 6 as seen from Adelaide at 18:48 ACST, 90 minutes after sunset (click to embiggen).

Bright Sirius is lost to view. Scorpius now dominates the Eastern horizon. The Southern Cross is prominent in the Southern sky. Between the bright star Canopus and the Southern Cross are a wealth of binocular objects to discover. The fainter clusters are now visible with the Moon being new.

 

 

   

 Elsewhere in Australia will see a similar view at the equivalent time (90 minutes after sunset).

 

 

Mercury returns to the evening twilight and is close to the crescent moon on the 11th.

Venus returns low in the evening twilight.

Mars is rising in the morning sky but is heading towards Jupiter.

Jupiter is rising in the the morning twilight sky. Jupiter is between the red star Aldebaran and the Pleiades cluster. The crescent Moon forms a line with Jupiter and Mars on the 4th.

Saturn climbs higher in the late evening sky.

Printable PDF maps of the Eastern sky at 10 pm AEST, Western sky at 10 pm AEST. For further details and more information on what's up in the sky, see Southern Skywatch.


 

Star Map via Virtual sky. Use your mouse to scroll around and press 8 when your pointer is in the map to set to the current time.

Cloud cover predictions can be found at SkippySky.

Here is the near-real time satellite view of the clouds (day and night) http://satview.bom.gov.au/